My dogs had giardia. Should I retest if no runny poop after treatment?

I would recommend monitoring the others for signs, have the fecals of all checked when done w medications. I also recommend picking up feces right away to help decrease chance of spread as well. If you feel more comfortable treating all at once that is ok too, and you can talk to your veterinarian about it too. Good luck

Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. if they were using an antigen test then testing immediately after treatment can lead to false positive results. I would recommend following your veterinarians recommendations as different tests and different labs may have varying sensitivity.

Hello, it can be challenging to rid giardiasis from a household especially when multiple dogs are affected. The best recommendation would be to treat all 3 dogs, at the same time, until you have 2 negative fecal samples. You should retest the fecals 10 days after initiating treatment for giardiasis and 10 days in-between testings. However, the most important part of this is to reduce environmental contamination, because as though you may successfully rid your dogs of giardia, they can become re-infected at any point. Treating the environment means you have to pick up their stools immediately after they defecate and you must wash the areas where they defecate with water and bleach. Most infections occur via a fecal to oral transmission. So at some point your puppy may have been exposed to giardia, then came to your house and started shedding the giardia onto your environment exposing your other dogs as well. Please wear gloves and wash your hands after cleaning as giardia can also infect humans. Best of luck and hope this helps.

Hi, after treatment feaces should become gradually more solid but it can take some time. THis varies according to each individual but normally within a couple of months, where you can have on and off softer stools, everything settles again.

Thank you for submitting your question regarding Luna. I recommend having her stool tested again to ensure the infection is resolved before taking her to public places. Be sure to clean your yard thoroughly to avoid reinfection. I hope this information helps!

Hi there! Usually dogs that are infected with giardia can be tested after treatment to make sure they aren't still shedding the organism. You can always request the client retest after the completion of treatment, which is usually done anyway to make sure the organism is gone. Giardia can be hard to get rid of, so a lot of vets will do this. There is a client handout about giardia that I really like that I will paste below. It also gives you instructions as to how to eradicate the organism in the environment. A way to play it safe would be for you to have this dog be your last appointment of the day and then disinfect if that works with your schedule. Otherwise, I think a negative retest would be sufficient when the dog is finished with the treatment plan from its vet. Here is the client handout with some great information for you! https://www.vin.com/veterinarypartner/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=4952529

If June is not currently having diarrhea, then there is likely no reason to treat her. Giardia can be an incidental finding on a fecal exam, meaning that it's present but not causing any problems. In cases like this, the pet often remains Giardia-positive on fecal exam even if you do try and treat, so it usually doesn't do much good and isn't really necessary. If June is having persistent diarrhea, then of course that's a different story. In that case, the giardia may or may not be the main problem, but we would normally want to treat for it to see if this helps the diarrhea to resolve.